Magazines, Start Your Innovation Engines

Say what you will about the tribulations of print, but the past year has been a watershed period for magazine brands. This year’s Best of the Web Award winners and honorable mentions demonstrated how firmly publishers have learned not only to grasp but to lead digital innovation.

User-generated content was all the rage, and such publications as Cosmopolitan, with its Fun Fearless Female campaign, shaped that energy into a gorgeous marketing package. The next wave of “post-Web” Internet devices washed ashore, and Sports Illustrated’s signature swimsuit issue exploded in the digital universe.

And when the iPad arrived, Popular Science, Style.com and Entertainment Weekly—to name a few—were ready to meet the challenge. Our Best of the Web Award honorees did not merely react to changing technology—they drove innovation.

We also honor this year’s inductees in min’s Digital Hall of Fame—these five innovators have been prime movers in the migration of magazine brands to the digital realm. We celebrated them, and all of the Best of the Web Award finalists, at a breakfast event at New York’s Grand Hyatt on April 7, 2011.